Our guest speaker will be DR. PAUL ROSE, zoo biologist and lecturer in animal behaviour, zoo animal management and conservation biology. Paul is a lecturer in the Psychology Department at the University of Exeter where he specialises in animal behaviour. He also works for conservation organisation, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), where his remit is animal welfare operations and research. Paul teaches zoo animal management and welfare at MSc level for Sparsholt College Hampshire and as a member of Defra’s Zoos Expert Committee, Paul writes and reviews policy pertaining to zoo operations and licensing for the UK Government.

Paul is a member of the IUCN Flamingo Specialist Group and the IUCN SSC Giraffe & Okapi Specialist Group. He is involved in various zoo committees and working groups in the BIAZA, EAZA and AZA regions.

Paul completed his first piece of in-zoo research in 2002 and has been professionally involved in zoo animal behaviour and welfare in an academic and practitioner capacity since 2006. He published his first book “The behavioural biology of zoo animals” in 2022 and is currently working on a new text that focusses on zoo animal welfare. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Paul’s research predominantly focusses on behaviour and welfare, and evidence for zoo husbandry, as well as exploring the value of zoos to society and their wider importance to human wellbeing and connection to nature.  

We’ll also read some of the stories from our writing contest! See you on Saturday, May 11th, 2024 at 11am EDT (Toronto/Canada).